Obama VIPs Feel the Housing Slump

According to the Wall Street Journal, FDIC chairman Sheila Bair removed this 14-room Colonial in Amherst, Massachusetts from the market earlier this month. Bair and her husband paid $355,000 for the 150-year-old house in 2002, which they later renovated. The house listed in April for $795,000, dropped to $745,000 three weeks later, then dropped again to $695,000. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithener can empathize. The country’s top economic official probably wishes he didn’t own this five-bedroom Tudor in Larchmont, New York, which he bought for $1.6 million in 2004. Geithner put the house on the market in February for $1.6 million, then dropped the asking price by $60,000 a few weeks later. When he still didn’t get any bites, he rented the home for $7,500 a month.